


When Darkness Falls

by Mantis21



Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Horror, Love Confessions, Mystery, Romance, Shyness, Vampires, Yuri
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:28:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27135260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mantis21/pseuds/Mantis21
Summary: All Amity cared about was finally confessing to Luz before people started disappearing across the Boiling Isles. Now, she needs to work with Luz to combat the strange new neighbors she believes are responsible while also struggling to finally let Luz know how she feels about her.
Relationships: Amity Blight/Luz Noceda
Comments: 5
Kudos: 20





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First Owl House story, let's go!
> 
> I've been thinking of writing Lumity for a while, and with Halloween coming up, it also seemed like a good time to do something in the spirit of the season. I've had this idea for a while, but it was only recently that I decided to sit down and write it. I hope you all enjoy.
> 
> Also, the first part of this chapter is prologue set-up stuff that's admittedly a bit out of place with the rest of the story. I'd recommend you read it, but if you want to skip past the non-TOH stuff and right to Amity, Ctrl+F Abomination.

The cold and foggy night heard the sounds of two pairs of footsteps trudging through the fallen autumn leaves.

Two young men walked on a path only barely illuminated by moonlight. They had flashlights with them, dangling from their belts, but didn’t dare use them for fear of revealing their presence. Unfortunately, this meant they couldn’t watch their step and avoid the many leaves that made loud crunching noises when they were stepped on.

“Psst,” hissed the man in the front to the other. “Walk lighter. We’re making too much noise.”

“I can’t help it,” whispered his partner, "and these boots aren't helping either.”

The man in front paused for a moment to contemplate. The solution came to him quickly.

“Take them off.”

“What?” The second man watched as the first bent down and tore off his black boots. “Ishmael, we can’t take off our boots. What if one of us ends up stepping in glass?”

That was a serious concern, seeing as they were walking through the grounds of an ancient, abandoned factory. There was any manner of things that they could accidentally hurt themselves on; glass shards and rusty nails were the first to come mind. Ishmael didn’t seem as concerned about that, however.

“If one of us does step in glass, then maybe that’s a good thing. The blood will draw _them_ out.” His eyes looked around and scanned the open area suspiciously before he looked back. “Come on, Isaac, hurry it up, we don’t have all night.”

“We didn’t have to do this at night,” said Isaac coolly. “Would’ve been better if we had done this in the day.”

Ishmael responded with a snort. “Easier, sure. But their kind is weaker during the day, and there’s no honor in taking a life when it can just barely fight back. Come on, Issac, we’re Van Helsings! This cowardice is unbefitting of our family name.”

“What you call cowardice, I call rationality,” grumbled Isaac as he reluctantly tore off his own boots. “If the reports are correct, we’re outnumbered here three to two, and you know just as well as I do that at nighttime they’re much stronger than us, much faster than us, and have magic at their disposal.”

His brother opened his mouth to respond, but quickly closed it. His head suddenly jolted to the side, his face bearing an expression of both fear and excitement. He reached down to his belt, and chuckled lowly. “Look alive, Isaac...we have company.”

Issac had just enough time to scramble back to his feet when the first vampire burst out from the shadows.

With the shrill shriek of a banshee, the pale humanoid lunged at Ishmael, arms outstretched to grab his face. Ishmael quickly grabbed its hands and pulled its body towards his foot, kicking it in the chest. The kick did little more than stun it for a second, but that second was all he needed. He tugged the vampire down to the ground and planted his whole body weight on it.

But true to Isaac’s word, the vampire was much stronger than he was. One simple flex was all it took to send Ishmael flying to the side.

“Ishmael!”

With another gruesome battle cry that ripped through the night, an affront to the natural world, the vampire charged towards Ishmael. It raised its clawed hands in the air, ready to strike down…

Then Ishmael smirked and shoved something against his supernatural opponent’s cheek.

The vampire paused for a moment, confused.

Then it felt its cheek burning.

“G-Garlic?” it asked in a meek gurgle.

The vampire hunter nodded. “Garlic,” he confirmed.

The vampire fell to the ground, its face bubbling and steaming. It didn’t have too long to suffer before Ishmael retrieved a wooden stake from his coat and stabbed it in its unbeating heart. It let out a horrific screech, jerking once, twice...then falling still.

Ishmael threw himself back, leaving the stake in the vampire’s chest. He watched as the corpse slowly began dissolving into dust. He lay back panting, catching his breath, when he suddenly heard his younger brother cry, “Ishmael!”

He turned around, and saw two more vampires standing in the place where the first had emerged from.

Unlike the first, these two were less monstrous—were it not for their extreme paleness, they would have been almost unmistakable for humans. One was a man, the other a woman, and both were poised to either fight or flee.

To Ishmael’s displeasure, they chose the latter, and began running back into the main factory plant.

“After them!”

Isaac immediately began chasing the two, and once Ishmael was on his feet, he did the same. The two brothers huffed and panted as they tore after their prey. The vampires entered a long hall, as stretching as it was gray, and the two hunter brothers were nipping at their heels.

“Mina, where are we going?” the male vampire shouted to her.

“The portal, Max, the portal!”

_Portal?_ Both hunters were confused. They hadn’t heard anything of a portal.

“But Mina, we can’t—”

“It's our only chance!”

That was when the vampires took a sharp turn to the right, busting open an old door and running up a fleet of stairs. Just as their chasers were about to follow, the one named Max dug his hands into the wall, extracting chunks of it, and hurled them at the two hunters with an animalistic roar. Isaac was able to dodge, but his brother wasn’t as lucky.

“Argh!” screamed Ishmael as the projectile hit his face and exploded on it. He fell to the ground, his face caked in white. He could feel his nose was broken, and twin streams of blood were spilling out of his nostrils.

“Ishmael!”

“Forget me!” he shouted to his brother. “Don’t let them get away, or they’ll kill again!”

Isaac froze, his instincts as a brother clashing with his instincts as a hunter. He saw out of the corner of his eye the vampire running again, and so he forcibly tore himself away from his older sibling and continued his chase, his heart burning with renewed vigor and anger.

Max caught up with Mina as she was slamming her hand into a wall with markings crisscrossing it. “Hurry it up, I only got one down!” he shouted at her.

“I’m trying, I’m trying. I just need to focus...”

She closed her eyes, grit her sharp teeth, and imagined whatever sparks of magic she had left in her body flowing into the palm. With a desperate cry, she hit the chalked wall one more time...

The wall suddenly began to glow. It let out a burst of white light that the vampires shielded their eyes from, and when they reopened them, they let out twin gasps at the nigh-miraculous sight of a swirling vortex, a thin veil between worlds.

“Whoa...I can’t believe you made that work.”

“Quickly, into the portal,” barked Mina.

Just as the two vampires shuffled into the light, Isaac entered the scene, thin wooden stake in hand. To the infinite fortune of the vampires, he paused at the bewildering sight of the portal, not even noticing the vampires stepping through it. When he remembered his task, it was too late; the vampires crossed over, and all he could do was shout “Hey wait!” and take a few strides forward before the portal instantly closed.

His outstretched fingertips could only swipe at the vapors it left behind.

Eventually, his brother caught up with him. He found Isaac standing idle before the wall, staring at it like it was a pretty woman. Ishmael, holding a cloth to his busted nose, let out a sigh, and instantly regretted it as sharp pain followed. He strode up to his brother and placed his free hand on his shoulder. “Guessing they got away, huh?”

Isaac nodded, and pointed at the wall. “They got away through here. There was this portal, and they stepped through it, and...shit, they got away. Sorry.”

“Eh, don’t worry too much about it,” said Ishmael, enunciating his words perfectly despite his injuries. “If they did get away, and went somewhere far, then there’s nothing we can do about it anymore. Our job’s done. Come on, let’s go get milkshakes. My treat.”

Ishmael began walking away, but turned around when he noticed his brother not following. “Isaac?”

“Yeah, coming, coming,” said Isaac. “I was just thinking...where do you think they could’ve gone?”

Ishmael thought on that for a moment, before shrugging his broad shoulders.

“Wherever they are...they’re someone else’s problem now.”

* * *

“Abomination, RISE!”

Clay erupted from the urn like a geyser, so swift and vicious that Amity had to step back to keep her robes clean of flying particles of muck. A large purple abomination stepped out of the urn, standing tall and mighty before its summoner.

Amity studied the abomination, looking over it with a hum. “Body is symmetrical, no extra limbs...perfect. Now, let’s test some things.”

She stuck out her polished index finger and drew a small red circle in the air. She pushed the magic into the belly of the abomination, and watched as its color slowly changed from dark magenta to a bright shade of scarlet. The creature groaned slightly, but was otherwise still as the new red hue spread from the middle of its body to the tips of its feet and head.

“Good, coloration works,” said Amity to herself. Then, glancing around the grassy top of the hill she was standing on, she said, “Let’s try something else now.”

She went as red as her abomination when she said that.

The witch changed its color back to purple and grabbed onto the abomination and began molding its body. She slapped and swatted at the molding clay figure, fashioning it into something less...abominable.

When she finished, she stepped back to observe her masterwork. The abomination found itself molded into a crude approximation of a girl...a human girl, specifically.

Amity gulped audibly, then shook her head. “It’s not really her, it’s just an abomination that kinda looks like her,” she told herself. “Just be natural. Practice.”

She exhaled lightly, calmingly, ran her hand through her hair, and stepped closer to the Luz-shaped abomination. “H-Hey Luz, I—”

“ _Hey Amity, wanna kiss my slimy human mouth?_ ”

“Gaah!” Amity fell back on the ground, startled. Did the abomination just speak to her? How was that even possible? And why did it sounds like someone doing a bad imitation of a teenage girl’s voice?

She then heard giggling behind her, and looked over her shoulder to see her older siblings, Edric and Emira, doubling over with hyena-like laughter.

Everything made sense now.

Amity frowned unhappily. She got up off the ground, briskly dusted herself off, and stomped over to her older brother and sister, her face twisted with anger and her fists balled at her sides.

“You two! What are you doing here?" demanded Amity. "Did you follow me?”

“What? Nooooooooooo. We just happened to be strolling by when we saw our precious, beloved little sister and wanted to say hello,” said Ed unconvincingly. Not that he was trying to be convincing.

“We also wanted to make sure our dear Mittens wasn’t getting up to any mischief,” added Emira.

“Mischief? Wouldn’t that be your field of expertise?” said Amity through grit teeth.

“Yes, it’s true.” Ed swooned dramatically and fell into Emira’s arms, his hand on his forehead like a feeble maiden. “It’s too late for us, Mittens. But you can still be good. Stay in school so you don’t have to walk down our dark path.”

“You two are _unbelievable_ ,” spat Amity. “I should...urggh, I’m going home!”

“Will you be taking ‘Luz’ home with you?” asked a smirking Emira. “Maybe you should take her out to dinner first.”

Amity was done talking to them; she let out a loud groan of irritation and began stomping off while her siblings began spouting their usual “Oh come on"'s and "Don’t be like that”'s. Amity didn’t care to hear it, and lucky they didn’t bother following her down the steep slope of the hill. Within seconds, their calls were out of pointed earshot, and Amity heaved a weighty sigh.

Her face was still very red. She’d need to do something about that.

She diverged from her path home to drop by a small store where she bought a bottle of soft drink (creatively named “Soft Drink”) and finished it by the time she got home. She was so annoyed that, in a rare display of apathy to the rules, she tossed the empty bottle to the side, but immediately regretted it when she heard someone yell, “Hey, watch it!”

“Sorry!” she called back to the man struck by her litter. She rushed over and picked it off the ground, bowing and apologizing again. She looked up to apologize a third time...but this time, for some reason, the words stuck in her throat.

The man who had been hit by her bottle was...pale. Not a normal pale either, but a very striking kind of paleness; the kind that seemed impossible to develop naturally.

His clothing was out-of-place too. She couldn’t tell what exactly was wrong with his long black coat and leathery boots and gloves, but for some reason they just seemed to _feel_ wrong. Everything about this man just felt wrong, like the immediate area around him was coated in an invisible miasmatic haze that pushed everything away like a reverse magnet.

_It doesn’t matter,_ thought Amity, shaking her head lightly. _There’s no excuse to be rude as you were._

“Once again, I’m very sorry, sir.”

The man still looked annoyed, but he was willing to brush it off. He waved his hand dismissively. “Eh, it’s alright. Stop apologizing, it’s not like you broke my leg or anything.”

He turned around to the house behind him, one of the ones in front of Amity’s own home. He dug into one of his coat’s pockets and extracted a golden key. Amity watched as he inserted the key into the door and unlocked it. As his hand wrapped around the doorknob, she had to ask, “Oh, are you a friend of Mrs. Westenra?”

The pale man turned around. “Who?”

Amity blinked, surprised by his answer. “Mrs. Westenra? She...she lives here. Lived her ever since I was a little girl.”

“Oh...oh, her. Yeah, er, she actually moved out the other day. Sold the place to us.”

“She did?” That was slightly upsetting for Amity, even more upsetting than the fact that her friendly neighbor didn’t even say goodbye to her before she left. “I don’t remember seeing anyone move any furniture in or out of here.”

“Well, you see, Ms. Weternan or whatever her name was went and got engaged to a rich, uh, elf. Yeah, really rich elf. And since she was moving into his mansion, she actually left us her old furniture, bless her soul. You know how costly this stuff can be for newlyweds.”

“Newlyweds?”

The pale man’s brow furrowed like an anxious man, like every question she asked caused him pain. “Me and my lovely Mina. Apple of my eye, she is. I actually need to speak to her now, so if you don’t mind...”

“Oh, don’t mind me, I was just curious. Mrs. Westenra was a friend, after all,” said Amity with just a hint of unsureness. Something didn’t seem right, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. “Well, have a good day, sir.”

Rather than returning the well wishes, the pale man grunted and quickly slipped inside his house, slick as an eel.

A discomforting sensation lingered in the air even after he was gone, but Amity didn’t focus on that as much as she focused on the fact that Mrs. Westenra had left the neighborhood without her even noticing. How could she have missed that old kindly witch moving out? Did she really make it that private? Or, worse, did Amity just not notice?

Guilt struck her heart, and she frowned lightly.

“Well, Mrs. Westenra, I hope you’re in a better place now,” she said as she turned around and went into her own home.

If she had known the truth of what had happened to her neighbor, she would’ve said those same words with a much different inflection.

But right now, she didn’t know, and because of that her unburdened mind had the freedom to float to other places. As she headed to her room, she thought about dinner, her homework that was due in two days, and most importantly...she thought about Luz.

She closed the door behind her and threw herself onto her bed, where she lay with her arm resting comfortably on her warm forehead. She stared up at her bare ceiling, and slowly the face of Luz Noceda materialized above her, a projection of her own passionate imaginings.

The bright eyes, the playful smile, the way her smooth caramel skin flushed with reddish hue when she was with her…

Or maybe that was purely her own imagination?

It didn’t matter, Amity realized as she sat up straight and drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around the bottom of her legs. Luz was perfect both in her mind and in matter. Amity couldn’t help but smile girlishly and feel her heart flutter as she thought of that silly human girl.

“She’s the only person that could ever make me feel like this,” she admitted bashfully. She threw back her head with a romantic sigh. “If only I knew whether she felt the same way for me.”

_Well, she was always trying to get close to you, even as you were being mean to her and her friends._

Amity winced. “What’s past is past,” she reassured herself. “Besides, she was trying to get close to me, but I don’t think...no, she just wanted to be my friend. She’s so friendly and kind that way. Which I love...but also hate because I don’t know if maybe she has any deeper feelings. I don’t know if she...feels for me the way I feel for her.”

It was intensely painful, this limbo she was stuck in. The only way she could free herself was by taking that one step forward and confessing to her. Then she’d be liberated from the chains of indecision, but only to wind up where? The floating paradise of romance hung above, tantalizing enough for Amity to reach to, but there were also the fires of rejection below. A leap of faith sounded good right about now, but when one of the outcomes of the leap was hearing the dreaded “ _I don't feel the same way, but_ w _e can still be friends_ ” in her perfect voice...

A violent shiver passed through Amity’s body.

“But I can’t keep living like this,” she said. “I can’t just keep holding this inside.”

Luz was the brightest spot in her life, a walking beacon of hope, happiness, and bliss that infected Amity deeply to her core. Ever since they became close, Amity just found herself wanting to be with her more and more. Every moment without her was dull and gray, every breath without her near felt slow and shallow. She wanted to be with Luz, and she wanted more than that. She wanted to hold her, to kiss her, to...do more with her.

Thinking about that, her resolve was firmed.

“You know what? No more delays,” she said bravely as she rose to her feet. She struck a pose like the Good Witch Azura, her hand raised in the air, celebrating her triumph over cowardice.

“No more delays!” she repeated. “Tomorrow, I'm telling Luz how I feel!”


	2. Chapter 2

The next day came, and Amity was ready for it. She spent longer than usual cleaning up and fixing her hair and otherwise making herself presentable. By the time she was done, she was practically shimmering...and literally shimmering, she had used magic to give her snow-white skin a thin sheen of glimmer.

“Who’s ready to confess to Luz?” she confidently said to her reflection in the mirror.

“You’re ready to confess to Luz,” her reflection responded.

“That’s right.” Amity nodded. “I’m ready to tell her how I feel. And to put on some clothes!”

Which she promptly did. She put on her uniform, and off she went to school.

* * *

As Amity walked towards the looming main building of Hexside School of Magic and Demonics, she scanned the crowd walking alongside her, searching for Luz. Her eyes narrowed in their concentration. Luz wasn’t that hard to miss, what with her strange round ears, her weird multicolored uniform, her adorable short hair, her beautiful hazel eyes...

_No, bad Amity!_ She shook her head viciously, like a werewolf shaking off fleas. _Focus! You can’t keep thinking about how pretty and attractive Luz is, you’ll get all flustered when you see her. Don’t think about her cute smile, don’t think about her sweet voice..._

“Hey Amity!”

_Wow, I said don’t think about her voice and you immediately hallucinate her voice. Pathetic, Amity, pathetic._

It took Luz putting her hand on Amity’s shoulder before the witch realized she wasn’t imaging things. With a startled cry, she spun around to see Luz Noceda herself, with her strange round ears, weird multicolored uniform, adorable short hair, and beautiful hazel eyes. She was smiling warmly at Amity, and the poor green-haired girl instantly broke out in blushes and prickly heat.

_Okay, she’s here. Play it cool. Pretend you’re talking to any other girl._

“H-hey Luz. Wh-what’s up?”

Amity forced a grin, hoping that would distract from her stuttering.

“What’s up? Check out what I found in Eda’s pile of human junk!” replied Luz, her tone dripping with excitement. She flung her backpack to her front side and began digging inside. She extracted a small book from her bag's messy insides and held it out for Amity to see. “Lookee, lookee, lookee!”

Amity lookeed at it. _ISABEL THE VAMPIRE SLAYER,_ the cover proclaimed in bold red letters that dripped with blood. Below the title was the image of a young woman about their age, dressed in a long leather jacket, with a wooden stake in one hand and rosary beads wrapped around the other.

“A...huh. What is this exactly?”

Luz gasped. “You don’t know Isabel the Vampire Slayer? And you call yourself a Good Witch Azura fan. For shame, Amity, for shaaaaaaame!”

“Oh, give me a break, I don’t have the same access to this stuff as you do.”

Luz digested that thoughtfully. “Okay, that’s true. Guess I should give you the brief SparkNotes breakdown.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

Luz ignored that. She cleared her throat like she was preparing for an important lecture. “Okay, so you know how there’s an infinite number of universes in the Azuraverse? Each one of them has their own version of Azura?”

Before Amity could respond in the affirmative, she continued, “So in one of those universes there’s a version of Azura that has a twin sister. Say whaaaaat? Yeah, I know, it’s so weird. Anyway, this twin sister—that’s Isabel, in case you missed that—gets kidnapped by an evil vampire queen named Ladygehanna—that’s all one name, by the way—who raises her for fourteen years so that she can one day take her place. But just before Isabel is actually turned into a vampire, she discovers the boy she has a crush on—I forgot his name, but I know it started with an S. Simon? Seth? Oh wait, it was Jake, never mind the S—was actually a vampire hunter all along, and he tells her the truth about her ‘mom’ but then he gets killed by Ladygehanna in a super brutal way where she rips out his intestines and then Isabel swears revenge on her and all other vampires in the name of her fallen love!”

By the time she finished, Luz was panting. She took a moment to catch her breath, but she’d be remiss if she didn’t add one final note: “Also it has a time-traveling robot pirate shaman in the main cast. It’s really good.”

“It does sound interesting,” said Amity. “And it’s canon to the Azuraverse?”

“Yeah! In Book Two there’s actually...oh ho ho, no, I’m not spoiling that for you. You need to read this series yourself.” She planted the book in Amity’s hand, and as her hands retreated, her fingers gingerly brushed against Amity’s. Amity gulped; the place where Luz touched her felt tingly now. In a good way.

“Wait, you’re just giving this to me?” asked Amity.

“Sure. We can’t be true Azuraheads together if you don’t know anything Isabel. Take it, it’s my gift to you.”

In spite of Luz’s juvenile presentation style, Amity was still immensely touched by the gesture. Her face instantly started to redden, and Amity held the novel up to her face, to cover her glowing blush.

Also, to cover her overwhelming smile.

“Thanks Luz,” she said when she finally fought the smile down to a calmer curve. “The moment I finish reading this, I’ll tell you so we can talk about it.”

“Can’t wait!” chirped Luz in that sweetly-pitched way of hers. Then, a strange look of thoughtfulness passed over her face. “Huh...all this talk about Isabel the Vampire Hunter made me realize I haven’t seen a single vampire since I got here.”

“Well of course not. We don’t have vampires here.”

Luz’s eyes widened. “Really? You have demons and fairies, but no vampires?”

Amity cocked her head, confused. “Were you not paying attention during history class?” Then, remembering who she was speaking to, she sighed. “Right. Well, if you were, you would know that vampires did live in the Boiling Isles long ago. But then the Emperor decree that they be banished, and every single one was forced out of the Isles.”

“Whoa. So what happened to them? Where did they go if they weren’t allowed to stay?”

To Luz’s surprise, her studious friend shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. We know they ended up in another world, but we don’t know which one. They could be anywhere, really, if they’re still around. Maybe even the human world.”

“Or maybe..."—Luz grinned impishly—" _maybe they’re still here in the Isles, ooohooohooh~!_ ”

Amity just rolled her eyes.

In the distance, the distinct sound of the school bell’s screaming in the halls poured out to the rest of campus. Both girls turned towards the school. “Oh, it’s time for first period already? Man, time flies,” said Luz. “Come on, we need to get to class.”

“Wait!” blurted Amity just as Luz was about to run off. The human paused in her running stance, and turned back to Amity, her eyes wide and anticipating. Amity blushed, and had to look to her boots for refuge from those beautiful irises.

_Come on, Amity, it’s your moment. Don’t mess it up now. Just tell her._

“L-Luz...there’s, uh, something I need to tell you...”

“What is it?”

“Um...um...you know what, I can’t say it now,” said Amity hurriedly. “Meet me behind the school at the end of the day, I’ll tell you then. We should probably get to class now, okay, let’s go.”

The millisecond her sentence ended, she was running. Not fast-walking, not jogging, but running like she was being chased. She burst into the school and raced down the hall and practically teleported into her seat.

_Coward_ , her mind called her.

“Shut up,” she whispered to herself. “I’m still going to do it, I just bought myself some time to make it perfect. Confessions come best when they’re after school, right?”

_I guess_.

“Then it’s settled,” said Amity, following it up with a nervous exhale. “After school...I’ll tell Luz how I feel. No problem. No problem-o.”

From then on, the schoolday became a waiting game, a game played by the mind against the worthy adversary known as time. As the swirling winds of fear, excitement, anticipation, and dread rubbed up against each other, they fused and became a raging cyclone of emotion, and the stronger that cyclone raged, the more time loost its fluidity. At once, the present felt slow while the totality of the day seemed to have rushed by on winged sandals.

To distract herself from all this, Amity resolved to practice what she would say to Luz. For a moment she flirted with the idea of simply handing her a letter and instructing to open it once she was far, far away, but no, she was set on telling her face-to-face. After all this time, anything less would feel like she was cheating herself.

So for the first time in almost ever, the normally-studious Amity drowned out her teachers’ lectures to come up with the perfect confession. She brainstormed and wrote her ideas down, and whenever she thought she had something really good, she would excuse herself to the bathroom and whisper the words she had written, seeing how they felt when spoken aloud.

“ _Luz, I’ve been meaning to tell you this for a while, but every time I try to I forget what I’m meant to say as I’m lost in your hypnotic cinnamon eyes..._ ugh, too unnatural, too forced. And there’s got to be a better word than cinnamon...”

She was so absorbed in her work that she was surprised when the lunch bell went off. Was the morning over already? Regardless, it was a pleasant surprise. While Luz was hanging out with Willow and Gus, Amity was off to the side, away from all her peers, revising her work and reading it in a louder, more natural voice.

“ _What I’m trying to tell you, Luz, is that I l-l-_ like _you._ ”

_Come on, say it. Just say it. It’s four letters, just say it!_

Amity closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She calmed herself down, brought herself a sense of serenity.

“Love.” She said the word timidly. “Love.” She said the word forcefully. Then, like a mantra: “Love. Love. Love. Love. I love you. I love you. Luz...Luz Noceda, I love you!”

She opened her eyes and smiled a smile of childish glee. “I did it? I did it!” she cheered. She jumped up and down excitedly, then stopped before anyone could notice. She settled for a fist pump, and a quieter “I did it.”

But this was only half the battle. Amity studied enough drama and theater to know that all the rehearsal in the world meant nothing if stage fright took over the main performance at the last minute. The rest of her day was therefore spent alternating between keeping herself composed and checking her soulsand-dial watch for the time. She could hardly wait for the end of the day, and when it finally came, she was the first out of class.

Her heart felt like a large drum, beating and pounding hard enough to shake the foundations of the world. Her mouth and throat were suddenly dry, and her eyelids twitched neurotically.

Amity sighed. At times like these, you really wish there was a spell of calming…

“Oh wait, there is.”

Amity cast the spell on herself, and now she felt the normal level of nervousness.

She was surprised to find that Luz had made it out of class and in their predetermined spot before her (she made sure to rush out of class to avoid this!). Still, she did appreciate the chance to look at her standing there, the sun rays striking her at the perfect angle to accentuate her warm beauty.

Amity quivered just looking at her.

“Luz,” said Amity curtly as she approached her crush.

“Amity,” responded Luz with a slight nod. “So I’m here. What did you want to tell me earlier?”

Her eyes were so glittering, so full of anticipation. Amity wondered if the thought that this could be a confession had crossed her mind at some point during the day. She wondered how surprised those eyes would be when she finally opened herself to her.

Amity brought her fist to her mouth and cleared her throat. Her cheeks felt like lava. “Luz,” she repeated.

“Yes Amity?”

_Remember everything you wrote. Remember everything you practiced._

“Luz, I—”

That was as far as she could go before she froze.

“I...I...I...”

She listened to herself in terror, mortified by how shaky her voice sounded. Worse, she was stuck! Stuck on a word. No, worse, a letter! She tried to will the other letters out of her throat, but for some reason they refused to come.

Luz wasn’t an especially observant person, but even she noticed something unusual going on. “A-are you alright?” she asked, titling her head.

“I...I...”

_No, no, Amity, you practiced! Just say it like before!_

“I...Ijustwantedtoaskaboutmultitrackinglikeyou!”

Luz blinked rapidly, confusedly. “Sorry, I didn’t catch that,” she said, cleaning out her ear with her small finger. “What was that?”

“Multiple tracks! Ha ha, that’s right, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about! I was thinking that maybe I could do more than Abominations, you know, a-and since you’re the only person I know doing all the tracks, I thought I’d ask you about it, heh.”

It was taking everything Amity had to not start screaming right now.

“Wait, you want to do more than one track too?” A smirk curled on Luz’s face. “Amity, didn’t know you had a little bit of a rebel in you.”

“Heh, yeah that’s me...rebel,” she said through grit teeth.

“Well you’ll have to ask Principal Bump about it, and maybe talk to Lilith too since you want to be in the Emperor’s Coven, but I think you can do it! Plus, look at my uniform.” Luz pointed at her multi-colored sleeves and leggings. “You could have a cool uniform like this too. I mean, magenta’s your color, but green could also totally be your color. Just think about what other magic you’d like to do and talk to the grown-ups about it. Good luck, Amity! Now, if you don’t have anything else, I have to get going now. Eda’s been insisting on me doing more of her chores.”

_Amity, this is your last chance, just tell her, don’t FUCK THIS UP!_

Amity was silent for a moment. She tried drawing on all her inner strength. Then she opened her mouth and spoke:

“No, nothing. Thanks for the advice. See you tomorrow, Luz.”

Her tone was defeated, crushed, broken. The voice of the dead.

Her ears began ringing, so she didn’t even hear what Luz said next. All she could do was stand idly and watch as the object of her love waved at her and turned around. Every step she took away from her felt like a step on her heart. Amity’s soul reached out to her, screaming for her to turn around and look back, howling confessions like an aimed torrent of wind...but the body was still, unable to move to reach to her or even call for her.

She messed it up. All that planning, all that prepping...and she still messed it up.

She hadn’t foreseen something like this happening, and so all rationality and thought melted from her mind. She reverts back to instinct, and before she even realized it, she was running. Running away from the school, away from Luz, away from life itself…

Tears streamed down her face as she ran.

Eventually, she found herself in the bushes. With nowhere else to go and no idea of what to do, she crumpled to the ground, hugged herself gingerly, and tried not to break down crying.

_Why can’t I just say it?_ she wondered in an inner voice of pain. _Why can’t I ever do anything right?!_


End file.
